Regardless of his inattention to her, he still kept Sonia pinned to his lap.
And he did this for a good long while.
He did this while they ate dinner. A dinner which Julianna cooked in Sonia’s kitchen and served in Sonia’s dining room on Sonia’s plates, using Sonia’s cutlery and glasses and cleaned up after, again in Sonia’s kitchen.
And he did this while the men talked, not only about the rebellion, the intelligence they were currently in the process of gathering and the strategy they were forming to quell it but about all things kingdom. What was happening in other regions. Saint’s takeover and eventual clean up of the Western Territories. Invitations to official ceremonies and which ones Callum would take (none of them) and who would go in his stead (mostly Regan but also, surprisingly, once the rebellion was crushed, Ryon).
It was, she hated to admit, fascinating, this whole secret world that was obviously thriving but completely unknown amongst her world.
What was more fascinating was Callum’s intense interest in all of it. Sonia had the sense that he didn’t rule with a heavy hand but he certainly liked to have his finger on the pulse of absolutely everything. He was interested in what his people were doing, making sure that they were living peaceful, prosperous lives and he took his role as their leader very seriously.
Callum interrupted the proceedings only once, to guide Sonia upstairs with his hand firm in hers in order to take her to the bathroom to administer her injection. And this he did with now practiced ease, quickly but, as usual, she emerged from the burn snug in the circle of his arms and, if Sonia still had her scales, this would definitely be on the good side.
Regan left with a hearty good-bye and warm smile to Sonia.
Julianna who had, when she was not serving them, to Sonia’s disgust, sat completely quiet in Saint’s lap, left with Saint on a quiet farewell and a shy smile at Sonia.
The night wore on, Sonia sitting in Callum’s lap, Callum seeming not to know she was there but doing things intermittently and unconsciously that made that damnable throb ache. Like fiddling with the charm on her claiming chain or occasionally drawing lazy circles with the tips of his long fingers at her hip.
Finally, when another man arrived (his name was Bodim), carrying large, scrolled up pieces of papers which, she saw when he spread them out on her table, were maps of the Western Territories with lots of markings on them, Callum’s attention turned back to her.
Mouth again at her ear and voice lowered, he ordered, “Go to bed, little one.”
His ordering her to go to bed, she thought, was bad.
Escape, she knew, was good.
She instantly made a move to slip off his lap but his hand tightened, stalling her progress.
His voice a barely audible murmur, he went on to command, “Don’t wear anything to bed. I want you na**d when I join you.”
She pressed her lips together, ignored the pulse that shot from the juncture of her legs straight to her ni**les and met the sexy serious look in his eyes (or seriously sexy look, she still didn’t know which).
Without a word, Sonia slid from his lap and called her goodnights then she went upstairs and did exactly what she wanted to do.
This was investigating her catalogues and trawling the internet to find Regan’s gift. She couldn’t buy Regan a gift with Regan actually there, but she needed to buy Regan a gift. It was, indeed, Christmas and Regan was her mother-in-law.
She got distracted while online shopping for Regan and swerved down the road of shopping for Callum. She told herself this was because it was her queenly duty to buy her king Christmas gifts. But it really wasn’t. He looked good in clothes and she found she enjoyed buying them for him. So much so, she searched for evidence of his size (and found his clothes hung in her closet, his toiletries put tidily away in her bathroom and noted Julianna had been busy) and in the end maybe went a bit overboard.
She eventually finished buying presents for all the new entries on her Christmas List, even Julianna and Diana, both of whom she found she liked tremendously, though she couldn’t quite say why. She wrapped the ones she purchased for Callum’s family that day and headed to bed.
She put on her nightgown and left on her panties, defying Callum’s order to be naked. Firstly, because she didn’t like sleeping naked, though she didn’t mind it last night. Then again, she slept the sleep of abandoned contentment. Secondly, because she may be his queen and her duties may be extensive but he gosh darn couldn’t tell her what to wear, especially not to bed. No, strike that, he couldn’t tell her what to wear anytime.
She finished lotioning and oiling her face, feet, hands and cuticles. And, with the hum of deep, male voices plotting in her dining room (something Sonia vaguely recognized that was tremendously weird but she had had a lot of weird recently and now it didn’t even penetrate), Sonia switched off her light. She cuddled her stuffed wolf and stared at her tree.
And she came to the realization, as the hum of voices and the twinkling of the lights lulled away her panic (and expectation), that she’d drifted through her thirty-seven years of life in a fog.
Losing her parents so young, knowing in an integral way she was more than a little bit strange and, if people knew the things she could do, they might even fear her, Sonia had never thought to dream.
Considering she had to hide her gifts from everyone, she never fantasized about who her husband would be, what their life would be like, how many children she’d have, because how would she go about living that kind of lie?
Therefore, she never considered living with another person and deciding who would do the cooking and who would take out the trash. She never thought about how she and her partner would argue and how they would make up. Where they’d go on vacation. If she’d get impatient with him watching too many sports on TV and if he’d get impatient because it took her too long to get ready. She never pictured a time when, together, they brought out the boxes of Christmas decorations and littered the house with them. Year by year adding precious memories, purchasing new ornaments to put on their tree and sharing moments that would be cherished.
She’d bought her white-picket fence farmhouse knowing she’d be the only one living in it and shrouding her disappointment that she was fated to live her life alone.
But now, she thought sleepily, having dreamed of Callum so long (an indication of her destiny before she even knew it was her destiny), she realized she did have fantasies of what her life would be like. They were as unobtainable as her dream Callum was (she thought then and she still did). But the feelings she had with Callum in those dreams, that was what she would have wanted to nurture in her real life, if it had been possible.
Not this.